


murphy's law never looked so good

by thescrewtapedemos



Series: how to build a relationship after puking on their shoes, an essay by Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the third [2]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M, Meet-Cute, meet-not-so-cute, some trohley drabbles for great justice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 01:58:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4041328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete pukes on Patrick's shoes and Joe is intimidated by chest muscles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nbmothman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nbmothman/gifts), [Shinju_Tori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinju_Tori/gifts).



> this was very enthusiastically requested by Shinju_Tori forever ago, and the request was backed up by my bae, so. sorry this took so long, i was a little busy with the 56k apocalypse fic of doom, but here we go! one trohley college au meet-cute.

Joe is feeling pretty good about life. 

He also can’t get the room to stop spinning, and not in the fun butterflies-in-your-stomach way, but hey. He’s a beer – or six – into the night, on top of a bowl – or three – and that’s to be expected. He’s still feeling pretty damn good, the bassline of the shitty EDM playing on the stereo throbbing in his chest in a nice counterpoint to the swishy feeling of his high. 

Patrick bumps into him a second later and grins madly. He’s sweat-soaked, pink-cheeked, totally adorable and totally shitfaced. Joe approves. 

He shouts something Joe doesn’t quite catch and Joe smiles and nods until Patrick spins away into the crowd. For about a second Joe’s a little worried about him – he’d dragged Patrick to the party, after all, and the two they’d been to before that – but the music is carrying his feet away in a moment and he forgets. Patrick’s cute, anyway, someone’ll help him if he needs it. 

Joe spends a nice twenty minute bobbing gracelessly to the beat of the music in the living room, out of rhythm but grinning agreeably at everyone who go close enough. A girl with fiery orange hair dances with him for a few minutes before spinning away with a blonde to dash up the stairs. Joe dances alone for a while. 

The music stutters for a moment and abruptly switches tracks to something else, just as fast and shitty but going by the groans of the crowd around Joe more unwelcome. Joe doesn’t notice; he’s busy tripping over a fold in the carpet and toppling for the floor in a swoop of vertigo and a sense of resignation. 

With a jolt he’s pulled up short, nose a foot from the floor. He spends a long, intoxicated moment eyeing the stained carpet in puzzlement before he realizes there’s a pair of hands clenched vice-like around his arms. 

The next instant he’s being hauled upright and turned around to face a pair of grey eyes and some truly intense hair. 

“Your hair is intense,” he says, instead of what he means to say, which was thank you. 

“Thanks,” the owner of the intense hair says. His tone is dry as a desert but unoffended and Joe is sat back on his feet summarily. 

Now that he’s mostly got his bearings back and has had a chance to regain some semblance of equilibrium he examines his savior. 

Abruptly he has to fight himself not to swallow his tongue, because. Because his savior is _shirtless_. And he has a _chest tattoo_ , an impressive one that – Joe forces himself to stop staring at the dude’s chest – shows off some mouthwatering chest muscles. The whole package is kind of mouthwatering. Joe didn’t know he was into the ginger look but apparently his _is_. 

It has been a while since Joe has gotten laid, not that he’s desperate. He can totally hold it together in the face of a hot topless dude. 

“You’re topless,” he says a moment later and considers punching himself in the face. It’s only the wave of vertigo that churns his stomach at the thought that really stops him. 

Shirtless Dude raises an eyebrow. And crosses his arms. It pulls his pectoral muscles tight and Joe feels his stomach swoop again. The swooping doesn’t’ stop and desperately he pulls his eyes back up to Shirtless Dude’s face before he does something stupid like vomit on his shoes or like, lick him. 

“You’re drunk,” Shirtless Dude says, still dry as a bone. It’s not a question. 

“As a skunk,” Joe agrees. “Your chest is making me feel funny.” 

Joe is going to punch himself in the face, he really is. 

Shirtless Dude opens his mouth a moment later, eyebrows drawing together in an expression that’s – Joe thinks it’s maybe _hurt_ , like Joe’s opinion on the dude’s chest actually _matters_ , what the fuck – when they’re interrupted by the unmistakable sound of someone blowing chunks across the room. 

This is followed seconds later by a shout that’s unmistakably Patrick, and Joe is sprinting after the noise before he can quite remember that he’s abandoning Shirtless Dude and any chance of redeeming himself in his eyes but – being a good friend, right. That’s important. 

He feels a little sad as he rescues a completely trashed Patrick from Pete’s smelly, clingy apologies and hauls him out the door, but whatever. It’s just one person, after all. There are plenty of hot people in the world and statistically speaking Joe’s bound to find a few willing to take of their shirts for him.

0o0

Joe wakes up the next morning and frowns a little against his headache. The sun is shining mercilessly through the window and that wonderful hangover combination of hunger and nausea is churning in the pit of his stomach.

Across the room Patrick groans piteously and Joe has to grin into his pillow. As bad as Joe feels Patrick must feel ten times worse. He doesn’t have _nearly_ the tolerance, for one thing. For another, he’d had pretty much double the amount of alcohol that Joe had. 

Getting Patrick out of bed and to the cafeteria is an adventure but Joe manages it with the martyred patience of a true friend. 

Patrick spends the whole time staring gloomily down at his eggs. Joe doesn’t mind, he’s basically running his mouth on autopilot anyway. Not that he doesn’t agree that nu-metal is a stunning example of shifting genre conventions, he’s just still pretty hungover. He can’t be held totally responsible for his words. 

He finally notices that Patrick’s staring in bewilderment across the cafeteria in a way that can’t be explained by hungover befuddlement. 

“Patrick, are you even listening?” he asks, kind of put-out that Patrick isn’t even making an attempt to pretend he cares what Joe has to say. 

“Not even a little,” Patrick tells him, and he sound kind of… _delighted_. Joe twists in his seat to see what he’s looking at. There’s nothing much, just a sea of tired and annoyed students consuming various low-quality cafeteria meals. 

“What are you-?” he asks, and then he sees Pete Wentz stick a yogurt cup in his pocket. 

Now that he really looks he sees the outline of, holy shit, a full-size box of cereal under his jacket. And what looks like a handful of spoons in his pants. 

“Christ,” Joe says, impressed despite himself. 

Pete spoons himself a plate of cheap eggs and steps up to the cashier with a huge, shiny grin. The girl doesn’t even give him a second glance while ringing him through. He stands there for a moment, flicking his hair into place and grinning triumphantly, until he catches sight of Patrick and he freezes in place. All the blood drains from his face. 

He remembers, then. Joe giggles. 

“Pete Wentz,” he tells Patrick, still giggling. Patrick frowns at him and then looks back for Pete. Who has managed to slip out of sight in the five seconds neither had been looking. Joe’s not concerned. Pete has a habit of turning up in odd places. 

“What?” Patrick asks belatedly, and Joe realizes Patrick _doesn’t remember who puked on him_. He grins with evil delight. 

“That was Pete Wentz. Crazy motherfucker,” he says, keeping his tone light. “Cool dude, though. Surprised you don’t know him, he puked on your shoes last night.”


	2. Chapter 2

Joe is not _stoned_ , okay. Like, maybe a little bit, but not that much. The fact that he’s currently crunching his way through a family-size bag of nacho Doritos and watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is one hundred percent coincidence. 

He stuffs another handful of Doritos into his mouth and crunches away happily. Life is fucking great. 

Patrick slams the door open and Joe spills Doritos all over himself. 

“Jesus fuck, ‘Trick,” he says, looking down at his lapful of cheese dust and corn-product. “Did you have to-?” 

He looks up and blinks in surprise. 

Patrick is frowning like a thunderhead, angry like Joe rarely sees him. Joe promptly forgets about his Dorito issue and reaches out to pause his cartoon. 

“What’s up?” he says, and then hesitates. “You look a little uh… upset?” 

“Fucking Pete Wentz,” Patrick growls and throws himself onto the bed. Joe nods wisely and then realizes he has _no_ idea what that means. Although he’s really not surprised Pete Wentz is the root cause of the trouble, he tended to be more often than not. 

“What’d he do this time?” he asks, and glances at Patrick’s flip-flops. They’re clean. “He didn’t ruin your shoes this time, I see.” 

“He gave me a concussion,” Patrick says into his pillow. It’s so muffled it takes Joe a second to understand. 

Joe hesitates. He’s like, the farthest thing from a med student but he’s pretty sure concussions are serious business. Something about having to be woken up every few hours? Joe doesn’t know. He throws a balled-up sock at Patrick just to be sure he hasn’t fallen asleep. 

Patrick turns a baleful eye on him and Joe grins winningly. 

“Do you need to be taken to the clinic?” he asks solicitously. Patrick groans and turns his head back into his pillow. 

“Not a real concussion,” he says grudgingly. “He hit me in the head with a Frisbee.” 

“Oh well then,” Joe says, relaxing and starting to shovel the abandoned Doritos in his lap into the bag. “We should get McDonalds.” 

Patrick turns over again, this time to turn a confused expression on him. 

“Celebration of your war-wound,” Joe says solemnly and gets pegged in the face with his own sock. 

They get McDonalds, though.

0o0

Joe is wandering the halls, feeling distinctly like a ghostly Victorian heroine. 

Nominally he’s waiting for Patrick to get back to his room with the pizza but in reality he’s just kind of tired and lonely. He gets like that sometimes, and he knows the best thing for it is to go out and do something, but it’s past eleven on a Tuesday night and there’s nothing going on that he truly wants to involve himself in. He has class tomorrow, after all. 

Hence the Victorian-Gothic hall-wandering. 

He’s just considering making himself some paper chains and a bedsheet ghost costume for maximum cool factor when a door thirty feet on down the hall slams open, expelling a girl about six feet tall wearing a Star Wars shirt and a pair of panties constructed of a truly awe-inspiring amount of lace. She’s carrying a little suitcase and she’s frowning like she’s trying to turn her face inside out. 

Joe sensibly tries to blend into the wall. It doesn’t really work but she barely spares him a glance before turning back around to shout into the room. 

“So fuck you, Hurley, call me up when you get a sense of maturity!” 

She stomps away, apparently unconcerned with the fact she’s not wearing pants. Joe suddenly has an alarming amount of respect for her. 

Someone follows her out into the hall and Joe drags his eyes back around to find that Hot Shirtless Dude – apparently named Hurley – is staring at him. He’s wearing a shirt this time, a fact that Joe has to work at not being disappointed by. 

“Hi,” Joe says because he has the god-given right to be hilariously awkward in situations as ridiculous as the one he’s just stumbled into. 

Hurley sighs and palms at his face. 

“Are you drunk this time?” he asks, and Joe is slightly offended. 

“I’m slightly offended,” he tells Hurley, “And no.” 

Hurley has the good grace to look slightly apologetic. 

“Sorry,” he says, and sighs again. “I’ve just… had a hell of a day.” 

“I can see that,” Joe observes, because there’s no universe in which a six-foot woman in a Star Wars shirt and lace panties doesn’t equate some kind of hell. Joe knows these things. Although he’s kind of getting the impression this was ‘breaking up with your hot as fuck girlfriend on a Tuesday night’ sort of hell and not a ‘this is the kind of sin that has Satan handing out awards’ sort of hell. 

Joe _categorically_ does not think ‘well now _I_ have a chance’ because that would make him a douchebag and Joe is not a douchebag. 

“Right,” Hurley says and pauses uneasily near the door. 

“You uh,” Joe offers awkwardly, “You wanna talk about it a little? It looked, uh, rough.” 

Hurley hesitates, eyes narrowing on him. Joe does his best to exude a sense of friendliness and trust. Eventually Hurley shrugs, looking resigned and a little amused. 

“Why not,” he says, and gestures into his room. “My roommate probably won’t be back for a while, you can sit on his bed.” 

Apparently Hurley is actually named Andy and his roommate is actually Pete Wentz. Joe spares a thought for irony and the whims of a capricious god before he’s being buried under a tide of how awesome Andy Hurley is. He’s a drummer in approximately one billion bands – the reason his girlfriend broke up with him, he says, lack of responsibility. He’s a straightedge vegan. He’s passionate about animal rights. Basically, Joe spends about half of the visit hiding a little bit of a boner and the other half fighting off a minor wave of insecurity. 

He leaves when Pete comes back with a pizza after stealing a piece because he’s not a nice person. 

Patrick is sitting on his bed swearing at his laptop computer when Joe saunters back in. He glances up and offers a half smile when he sees Joe. 

“You look happy,” he says, and Joe very adamantly doesn’t blush. 

“You don’t,” he retorts and smiles through the tidal wave of complaining this releases on Patrick’s part. He may have a little bit of a crush. It’s like, not that big of a deal.


	3. Chapter 3

Joe spots the flier entirely on accident. 

He tends to ignore the posters and fliers that paper the notice boards. Most of them are for charity events he can’t afford to go to, or advertisements for things he doesn’t need, or notices for shows of bands he already knows are playing. But he’s waiting for the class before his to file out of the classroom, and he’s bored as hell, so he distractedly peruses the selection of room-shares and used furniture offers. 

The advertisement is nestled between an ad for a sofa that promises ‘minimal staining’ and a poster about a pro-gun-control demonstration in front of a sporting goods store. His eye is drawn instantly to the picture of beautiful, golden-brown mozzarella sticks. 

‘Half-price unlimited sides with order of entrée’ says the sign, and Joe might or might not utter a prayer of thanks under his breath.

0o0

“Patrick Stump, get some shoes on,” Joe says dramatically, slamming the dorm door open.

Patrick groans, peering over the edge of his laptop. He looks a little bit like an adorable owl, blinking in the light from the hallway.

“What for?” he demands grumpily. Joe grins at him beatifically and hipchecks the door shut. Patrick is just being a wet blanket. He loves Joe really. 

“There’s a restaurant downtown that’s doing half-price appetizer night and I am in desperate need of mozzarella sticks,” Joe tells him and reaches out to close the lid of Patrick’s laptop. For a few ineffectual moments Patrick tries to fight his hands off but inevitably Joe wins and Patrick sighs, shuffling his laptop off his lap and onto the bed. 

“But why do _I_ have to come along?” Patrick asks and Joe rolls his eyes, grabbing Patrick by the arm and starting to try to yank him upright. Patrick isn’t going to go unless physical force is exerted, this is obvious. Everything has to be difficult forever, apparently. 

He misjudges and with an _oof_ of expelled air Patrick rolls off the bed entirely on onto the floor. Joe winces and fixes a winning grin on his face. 

“Joe,” Patrick begins. The dirty carpet is muffling his words but there’s certain funerary quality to his voice nonetheless. 

“I know, you’re gonna kill me,” Joe says. He’d feel apologetic but the siren-song of mozzarella sticks is singing in his blood and he’s starving. “Just get your fucking shoes on.”

The sigh Patrick gives as he climbs to his feet and morosely hunts for his flip-flops is undeservedly martyred but Joe just cannot be assed to care.

0o0

The restaurant, it turns out, is right across from the sporting goods store that’s being protested.

Patrick stares at the chanting crowd and their signs with some trepidation. Joe doesn’t bother. They’re not protesting the inhumanity of diner food and therefore have nothing to do with him. Anyway, the noise is cut as soon as he steps into the diner. 

It’s 80’s kitsch at its finest and he grins at it all affably. Patrick has gone quiet at his side, because Patrick is a massive sucker for anything 80’s. 

“Take a seat wherever,” the hostess tells them. She doesn’t look up from her phone, which Joe takes as a personal challenge. 

They head to a booth near the back and on the way over Joe spots Pete hovering by the bathroom doors, staring at Patrick’s unsuspecting self. His expression is half deer-in-the-headlights, half Christmas morning and Joe snorts. He considers warning Patrick but decides, because he isn’t a nice person actually, that he’d rather see whatever antics Pete would pull. 

Anyway, he has a hostess to charm. 

She smiles up at him readily enough when he compliments her on her earrings and they fall into an easy pattern of conversation. He’s not super invested and neither is she but it’s nice to talk to someone marginally interested. Most of his attention is invested in peering at Pete’s progress with Patrick anyway. 

The peace is shattered when someone throws open the door right behind Joe and shouts across the diner. 

“Pete,” the person calls, and Joe turns to discover the person yelling is in fact Andy Hurley. God, Joe decides, either loves him or hates him. “Cops got called, we have to bail.”

“You’re shitting me, Hurley,” Pete calls back, already on his feet and heading for the door at a fair pace. “I’ll meet you at the van, get going!”

Joe doesn’t have time to do more than stare at Andy – who doesn’t even seem to notice he’s there, the asshole – before the door is swinging shut behind them both and they're gone. Joe exchanges startled glances with the hostess. 

The diner seems significantly quieter with them gone. The conversation with the hostess doesn’t really survive long, and Joe heads back to the table after a moment. He’s starting to think he should resign himself to Andy Hurley showing up at the stupidly appropriate moments to subtly ruin his life. 

He’s probably exaggerating, he knows. It’s possible he’s feeling a little spited that Andy didn’t notice him, after a late-night heart-to-heart and everything. Well, whatever. Mozzarella sticks were the whole point of this mission anyway. 

“Who was that?” he asks, sliding into the booth across from Patrick. 

Patrick’s mouth is hanging open and he’s staring down at a little pile of bills on the table in front of him. They’re crumpled and worn and Joe would bet an organ or two that they originated from Pete’s pocket. 

Patrick closes his mouth with a snap and blushes furiously, shrugging with uncalled-for violence. 

“No one,” he says, sounding vaguely strangled. 

Joe decides, because he is a good friend, not to call him out on the obvious lie, and instead turns to the waitress to order the largest plate of mozzarella sticks available.

0o0

Andy Hurley is suddenly absolutely fucking everywhere.

Joe doesn’t _understand it_. For his whole freshman year and the quarter and a half of his sophomore year he’s gotten through so far he’s led a completely Hurley-free life. Innocent of all thought of the little v his hipbones make. Unsullied by thoughts of his bicep muscles. Pure of knowledge of his super sick, totally hot chest tattoo. Not that Joe’s going to admit to thinking about any of that under anything less than torture. 

Now, however, Joe can’t fucking _turn around_ without bumping into Andy Hurley. 

He’s in the library, sitting quietly in the corner of the room Joe usually uses to nap in. Actually studying, what the hell. He’s in the dinning halls at the same time that Joe is suddenly, frowning thunderously at the vegetarian and vegan options. He’s constantly, _constantly_ passing Joe in the halls before and after classes, which is strange, because he’d thought Andy was an agriculture major and Joe isn’t sure what that has to do with the College of Business and Economics. 

He maybe, possibly loses it a little bit when he’s waylaid by Andy on his way across the main quad. He’s offering a flier and Joe doesn’t even hear what it’s for because he’s letting out a thin, shrill noise of frustration before Andy can quite get through the first three words. 

Andy pauses mid-gesture, staring at Joe, who stares back. 

“Are you high again?” Andy asks at last, arm dropping a little bit. 

“Are you _following me_?” Joe demands shrilly without quite thinking his words through. He feels blood rush to his cheeks as soon as he registers what he said but he glares at Andy anyway, hoping he can brazen his way through this whole mess and maybe not embarrass himself further. 

“…What?” Andy asks. 

“I’m not high, what the fuck!” Joe says, rewinding to what Andy had said and suddenly insulted. “It’s the middle of the day and I’ve got classes, what kind of person do you think I am? I’m getting a little insulted by the question, dude, it was one fucking time you met me when I was high.” 

Andy’s got his mouth open a little bit when Joe finishes. Joe doesn’t let up his glare. He feels kind of hurt, honestly, if Andy really thinks he’s just some useless stoner fuck. 

“Oh, I-,” Andy begins, and Joe snorts. 

“Whatever, gimme a fucking flier,” he says grimly and snatches the pamphlet from Andy’s unresisting hand. Andy doesn’t say anything as he storms away, not that Joe really expects him to. Whatever, fucking stuck-up asshole. Judging Joe before he even knows him. 

Fuck Andy Hurley, anyway. He isn’t even that hot.

0o0

Finals suck, because finals always suck, but Joe pulls through them with some assistance from a coffeemaker that he’s pretty sure is magic since he drops it every few days and it still works just fine. Patrick disappears into a haze of notes and only emerges to blink at Joe blearily and gesture for a cup of coffee.

Joe still sees Andy everywhere but now he pretends he doesn’t, looks right through him when he passes him in the hallways and leaves the room when he realizes Andy is in it. He doesn’t even know if Andy notices but it makes him feel better and he’s never been above being a petty fucker anyway. 

Pete seems to be lingering around the common room more than usual, peeking at Patrick out of the corner of his eye. Joe doesn’t mention it because he’s crabby but he feels happy about it anyway. At least Patrick has a chance of getting naked with someone hot sometime in his future. 

Joe finishes his finals with a sense of relief and a bit of a caffeine headache and spends a day sleeping. 

The door knocks the day after, about noon. Joe’s busy packing for break, sorting through his clothes for the dirtiest stuff. He’s holding a shirt that may or may not be gaining sentience when he opens the door. 

Andy Hurley blinks at him for a moment. Joe blinks back. 

“Hi,” says Andy, eyes flickering down to the shirt in Joe’s hand for a moment before flickering back to meet Joe’s eyes. 

It takes a moment for Joe to process before he tosses the shirt on the pile behind him and crosses his arms, glaring. 

“What do you want?” he asks. His tone may or may not be nasty. 

“Pete asked me to courier these here to give them to Patrick,” Andy says, and lifts the plate Joe is only just now noticing his holding. It's full of charmingly lumpy chocolate chip cookies. There’s a Post-It in eye-searing orange with some writing scribbled on it Joe doesn’t bother to read. 

“Cute,” he says, and doesn’t uncross his arms. Andy winces. 

“And also I’m here to apologize?” he says. 

He doesn’t exactly sound sure of himself. Joe narrows his eyes. 

“Sure you are,” he says, and takes the plate of cookies from Andy. He’ll leave them on the desk or something. 

“No, really,” Andy says and catches Joe’s sleeve as he’s turning away. 

There’s a very long, dangerous moment where the plate of cookies teeters in Joes hand and there’s the very serious possibility that there will be baked goods all over the floor. Pete would kill him if he were to ruin his weird little courtship gift, Joe knows, and grabs hastily to stabilize it. 

He saves it and deposits it on the ground by the door. He’ll move it later. 

“Sorry,” Andy says when Joe’s finished flailing around like an idiot. 

“You should be,” Joe says snippily. He’s kind of being an asshole, he knows. Whatever, he doesn’t even care. Andy’s a judgmental prick and not even that hot and probably some kind of secret racist or sexist or something-

“I know,” Andy says, and abruptly all of the wind goes out of Joe’s sails. 

“Uh,” he says, looking at Andy properly for maybe the first time since he’d opened the door. 

“I’m sorry I assumed all that stuff about you,” Andy says, and he’s actually _blushing_ a little bit, what the fuck, Joe is delighted. “It really wasn’t fair of me and I was a huge asshole about it, and I won’t do it again.” 

“Oh, well, I mean,” Joe says, because he is an idiot and has no idea what to say. Andy smiles at him hopefully. 

“I’d like to make it up to you?” Andy says when it becomes apparent that nonsense is all that’s going to come out of Joe’s mouth. “You’re a cool dude, I’d like to hang out sometime.” 

“Yeah, uh,” Joe says numbly. What is his _life?_ “I’m going home for break like, right now, but gimme your number and I’ll text you.” 

“Cool,” Andy says happily, and programs his number into Joe’s phone when Joe hands it over. He spends another minute or two smiling happily at Joe, what the _hell_ is his life, before making his excuses and wandering off back down the hall. 

Joe closes the door and stares down at the plate of cookies. 

“What the fuck?” he asks. The cookies, predictably, don’t respond.

0o0

He texts Andy a day later, when he’s comfortably back in his old bedroom.

 _hi, this is joe,_ he sends. 

_:)_ Andy sends back. 

Joe is fucked, he decides.


End file.
